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by Dr Graham Little PhD AFNZIM MInstD MNZIC
Good question.
Answer: It is a better model of the link between staff behaviours (human performance) and business strategy and goals. It is the best possible model in fact, it is the only way staff behavior can be linked directly to strategy.
So what?
If your thinking is clearer, do you act more effectively? Of course you do.
OPD has answered the question: How is staff behaviours linked directly to business strategy and goals?
Having answered the question, the OPD-SHRM system then provides the consulting support and web based administration systems that enable every team leader to apply the model to their team.
If every team leader has a clearer and more accurate picture (model or theory or concept) of the link between the goals of their team and the behaviors needed to achieve those goals and has better processes for managing that link (that arise from the understanding of the model, so depend on the insight into the structure of the model), then they will act more effectively as team leaders.
If you get the thinking right, then you are much, much more likely to act much, much more effectively.
Financial payback from getting it right
If every team leader better understands what they are doing they will act more effectively as a team leader, then results from the team will improve, financials improve, and the business benefit of OPD is realized.
HR payback from getting it right
Because team leaders are acting more effectively as team leaders, then the sense of purpose in the team increases, there is more success so sense of achievement improves, relations between team leader and team members improves and becomes more focused, more professional more rewarding in terms of success, satisfaction, and sense of support and encouragement.
How is OPD implemented?
The OPD model enables team leaders to 'see' clearly the only way to link staff behaviours to results. The OPD consultant then guides the team leaders on how to implement the process that arise from the model to their team and so gain the benefits the OPD system offers, with payback to people and to the business (as outlined above).
But isn't it just training in another form?
No.
OPD is about achieving better alignment of staff behaviour with business strategy and goals. This is a crucial issue. OPD is about team leaders getting the concept right, and then applying the concept in their teams.
Once staff behaviour is aligned, that is staff and team leaders understand and 'see' clearly the behaviour needed to achieve the results, then it will become clear which of those behaviours people are good at and which they not.
Training is then the activity of improving the ability of staff to act out the agreed behaviours best aligned to the strategy and goals. We have also found that managers are actually not very good at coaching. Some are, but most we find tend to avoid it. So the idea of manager as coach we do not find very useful.
So what should team leaders or managers do?
Team leaders (managers) should manage.
Manage what?
Team leaders need manage the link between staff behaviour and the required goals and outputs. In addition, team leaders usually have actual work to do, say if at divisional manager level, that work may include reports for senior management, developing plans and tactics for achieving the results, such as planning new equipment, new marketing campaigns etc. Once such thinking done, then the team leaders need review the necessary changes in staff behaviours that arise from the new plans and tactics, and this again best done via the insight and understanding of the link between staff behaviour and outputs as provided by the OPD model.
OPD takes all guess work out of how to get the best result from a team. It applies in any business where people are a strategic factor in the business and human performance a key success factor in the profit and loss.
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